Hi everyone. I've got a question or two and after reading all your great posts, I'm sure someone here might have some insight into my dillema.

I started induction on March 4th. In the two weeks, to March 18th, I dropped 17pounds. (something like that, anyway). Today is the 27th and I've not dropped any more. Maybe a pound. I've not cheated once. In fact, I know my struggle is to eat!

Yesterday's menu

breakfast -- decaff coffee and full cream (1tbsp), 1 slice 3g atkins bread n'butter.
lunch - 4oz sirloin steak salad w/blue cheese dressing (and a diet coke)
dinner - chicken taco salad - salad, w/ 3oz chicken, sour cream, cheddar cheese (diet coke)

I'm thinking that first of all, I should skip the diet coke all together. I didn't have ANY on induction. Secondly, maybe not enough protein? I'm drinking my water like I should and my indicators say I'm in ketosis. I struggle with eating. I'm not hungry! one day when I felt like I pigged out and had a steak at lunch AND at dinner AND a big omlette at breakfast, I dropped 2 pounds! Am I not eating enough protein or enough food in general? Too much salad?

I'm not even close to considering dropping my diet. I feel AWESOME on this plan and plan to stick it ouit, even if this is a simple plateau I'm on.

Any insight would be appreciated. I want to stick to induction as long as possible. I KNOW I'm dropping inches. I need new pants already!

Mavis

Hi Mavis,

WHOOO-HOOOO 17 pounds - YOU GO GIRL! That's just tremendous

A stall is 4 to 6 weeks with no loss of weight and no loss of inches, so even though you haven't lost much in the last week or so, you're not stalled yet.

It is quite customary to have a brief period of time after induction when you don't lose any more weight. It's like your body is taking a little rest and re-adjusting itself. You should start to drop again soon.

I didn't run your menu through fitday, but it looks like you may not be eating enough. You should be at 10-12X your current body weight in calories; approx. 70% of them should be coming from fat (YES, FAT), 5-10% of them from carbs and the remainder from protein. If you go to www.fitday.com you can open a free account and keep good track of what you're eating and what the distribution is. Just please note that fitday does NOT subtract fiber from carbs, so you get to do that by yourself to come up with your net carbs.

You've done a fantastic job so far so don't get discouraged and give up. I would suggest that you hide or toss those da**ed scales though. They can become your worst enemy if you're jumping on them every day or every other day. It's very normal for body weight to fluctuate from day-to-day, just from the amount of water retention you're having.

Why don't you try fitday and see where you are with your calories and your fat/carb/protein distribution. It can really be a great help.

Oh - might as well warn you - whoever designed fitday had a very strange sense of humor so some of the default amounts are very weird. Be sure you check the default measurement amount when you enter your items. You will probably want to change it.

Keep on going - you're doing a fantastic job.

shortstuff

SO many new dieters seem to think that weight just FALLS off....
It does NOT. You are not stalled. 17 pounds is just fine. Some weeks, maybe even months, you may not lose, and it does not mean you are stalled. Your body is a living organism that has processes and adjustments to tend to, that have nothing to do with your conscious effort to lose weight. It will happen at it's own pace.
My advice is to definitely not worry about your diet, because it looks fine. Diet soda or too much salad quite probably isn't the reason you're not losing.
Take it easy...
If you DO want to cut things out of your diet, i would say the bread and dairy (not the soda). If you want salad, concentrate on the dark leafys, like spinach. Much more nutritional value than taco salad.
Another thing is, are you exercising? Exercise is much more effective at helping with weightloss than worrying about whether or not aspartame is causing you to stall.
Good luck!

I find it helpful to think in terms of average monthly weight loss. The weight does not come off steadily for most of us, but it does come off. Often the body will lose fat but replace it with water. When it lets go of the water, you may suddenly lose several pounds.

If you focus on day to day or even week to week losses, you will get discouraged. I've lost over 110 pounds, but I've had several periods of two months when I lost nothing at all. Each time, I started losing again and lost fairly rapidly for a while. Just be patient and hang in there and you will almost certainly start losing again.

You're right, you're right, you're absolutely right. I just created a fitday account and am tracking in there now, and I know I need to increase my exercise and get REAL when it comes to the rate of weight loss. I'm going to chalk up March as a SUCCESS and keep on keeping on and see how April goes.

That dang scale is a monster. It calls my name in the morning, you know. I think I'll gag the scale and stuff it into the closet until the end of APRIL!

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it and I look forward to getting to know everyone here!

Mavis

17 lbs in 2 weeks is great it just slows down for everyone
keep up the good work